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by SmolSoldier46



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I just like writing angst, Jonny and Tim are the worst in this, Ts deserves love, airlocked, polymechs if you squint - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26473063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmolSoldier46/pseuds/SmolSoldier46
Summary: Jonny and Tim force Ts out the airlock and expects it to show up again as it routinely does. Only this time they pushed a little to far, six weeks pass and Ts still hasn't arrived worrying the crew of the Aurora as they realize the little things their wooden friend had done.Welcome back to my midnight madness :)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 58





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**Author's Note:**

> Jonny and Tim are the worst in this and I wrote this at like 11 pm with no corrections so its not the best. Sorry -w-

It didn’t hit the crew immediately, nothing ever does.

They would be lying if they said they knew something was wrong. They would be lying if they said they knew that their dear friend wasn’t okay. At this point they just wished they would’ve noticed it sooner.

Jonny had been annoyed and Tim was just as mad this time. TS had been asking one to many questions and was routinely thrown out the airlock by the both of them. It didn’t take long and it was a quick seemingly harmless way to handle their rage, this didn’t justify the action but it's not like anybody else could judge. So that was that, no biggie, a normal reaction.

Except it was also normal for it to return. It was normal for the Toy Soldier to show up out of nowhere back to its consistent pestering and cheerful idle. It always found its way back no matter how much they shot it, threw it, tied it up, and even once tried to burn it. That's what they thought would happen, that it would show back up and they could move on to do whatever they pleased with an ever cheerful sidekick right next to them.

So they waited patiently. They waited through the first week and eventually the sixth before they had begun to seriously consider the idea of their dear wooden soldier never returning home.

Tim had begun to loose hope slowly as the days ticked by. He set up a small obstacle course, he always did. He made some intricate patterns at the airlocks whether it be a maze or time based goal and waited for them to try to wander in and be greeted with the challenge. It kept them on their feet and allowed them to exercise their more soldier aspects in a safe environment. But as the days passed by Tim found himself waiting by the end hopeful for the next time they would try patiently watching until somebody dragged him away. After the fourth week he had begun to give up any hope they would return let alone try out the elaborate set up and he began to feel a bit more guilty about the airlock.

It wasn’t its fault it had been curious, it wasn't its fault at all. They just wanted to know more and accidentally pushed a bit too far causing him to snap and undeniably overreact. This wasn’t really supposed to pan out this way, with him slowly removing the more difficult set ups until all that remained was the untouched beginning. A small not challenging the wooden soldier yet again to get past, their own little game. 

Tim replaced the note with a simple table, chair and a cup of tea changed hourly to make sure it was never to dry for their friend. 

Ivy could only watch as the variables ticked lower and lower with every passing week. First a 100 then a 99 and now only a 45. The days went by and turned into weeks before she had begun to fully realise what this meant to her. TS had always been a kind presence and somebody she could lean on when things were rough. She often lended them books and they would come back with an extra copy from god knows where so she could add it to her collection, they had a knack for finding interesting subjects too. They gave her books of all types, textbooks, adventuring stories, mysteries even she couldn’t predict the end of. Each one had been special and interesting found on some long since forgotten planet but the book was never forgotten. She kept a small section open for those books. 

She remembered the times it brought tea or arrived exactly on time to discuss her newest book forming a small book club of just the two of them. It provided meaningful input and helped her come up with multiple opinions in the matter of seconds. It listened as she rambled and ranted for hours on end happily supplying her with more ideas and suggestions. It gave her accounts from wars when it could to add to her ever growing digital archives. 

She winced as the numbers dropped just below 40%.

Raphealla sat alone in her lab twiddling with a bunch of vials and tubes that contained corrosive acids bored out of her mind. She had experiments to run but each one needed an assistant and everyone on the ship was unfit to help. Ivy would get distracted, Brian would cause miscalculations due to the whole brass situation, Tim, Jonny, and Marius had no interest in science, Nastya was with Aurora, and Ashes had just refused keeping their streak ever since their last coat had melted off. So she was left to sit alone in her lab twiddling with whatever she could get her hands on. 

The Toy Soldier would’ve cheerfully agreed as long as they had been allowed to change beforehand. It didn’t matter what they were doing, it handled the situation with ease even she had been jealous of. One fond experiment had ended up with a octokitten that latched to the wooden doll with such fondness that Raphealla had ended up making it box of food that could easily keep the little creature healthy as it wandered with its new friend. A couple days later a different octokitten had shown up missing a tentacle, so she had of course helped it grow another one back. After that octokittens continued to show up with missing limbs, organs, or just seeking love from the scientist. When she asked Tim about their sudden fondness he shrugged and simply mentioned that they mustve figured out who had made the food TS had been feeding Oscar. She smiled and happily helped each octokitten putting her mad scientist based experiments to good use on the small creatures.

While some of them kept showing up she had to go looking for octokittens to help now throughout the ship and missed the friendly conversations she would have with TS as they fed them new food mixtures.

Ashes tried not to care at first. They had also tried to not reflect when wooden sculptures and small rare pieces of fine jewelry had arrived overnight. They tried not to miss the friendly ‘hellos’ as they passed through the halls and sheer joy when they had agreed to a tea party (‘Just like in The City’ they had proclaimed proudly). 

It very clearly didn’t work. It was upsetting to say the least when they wouldn’t be handed bags of wooden chips and flakes to burn to their heart's content. It was disappointing when they didn’t find replicas of long lost possessions that Ashes had grown to love oh so dearly. They acted like they didn’t care about the finely shaped sculptures and boxes but now it was hard to forget.

They kept each pack of cards or new gift on a shelf they could just barely reach with a ladder, far out of anyone's touch, and treated them like pure gold. Each statue was seamless and every once in a while they would find a matching one sitting inside the Toy Soldiers room and reflecting back. It was nice to know that this was something that only the two of them seemed to share. Sure everyone else also got carvings but for it to make ones that went with each other and give one to Ashes, it meant something to them.

So now they sat prized atop a shelf untouched but cared for deeply and no matter how much they tried to convince themselves it didn’t matter it hurt deeply to know they might never get another twin carving again.

It took Marius a while to fall out of denial. ‘It always comes back, why not now?’ he would repeat. ‘They probably just need some air’ ‘They never go missing for more than a week, what's half a week more?’. The thoughts kept streaming from his head every time he noticed the Toy Soldiers absence.

It had always helped greatly on the ship. He tried not to order it around and in response it had become great friends with Marius teaching him multiple other first aid solutions. He didn’t need them but it would always insist it learn as a doctor and now Marius might as well be one. It was always kind and open being a strong safe home for him when he needed to let out his emotions. 

They spent many nights singing and playing songs to the heart's content. They created small jingles and ballads about made up heroes that existed only in their minds. They would share tales of the Great Hero Marcy Marlonia or the dastardly plan of Harold the Heretic. The stories went on and on until one of the others had come to shut them up with a bullet, even then they would die snickering about whatever crazy adventure that had been concocted that night. Some songs they had memorized long ago and alot of the adventures had been kept scribbled on paper in such vague wording only Marius and the Toy Soldier had been able to read. They had even gotten to such an extent he only had to shout simple phrases that it would shout back causing a look of confusion to erupt from everyone else in the room as the two tried to trudge through one of the songs barely containing their laughter.

It wasn’t that much fun when there wasn’t anyone who could sing the second verse with him.

Nastyas day hadnt changed much at first but over time she began to grow a bit more sad and weary as her friend refused to return. She missed the days that it had just been her, Aurora and TS sitting in a engine room and chatting away as the time flew by. She missed the random cups of tea that would appear if she went to long without sleep, she missed the wooden engraved handles that they had happily handed to her giving her toolbox a much needed touchup. 

Most importantly she missed the tea parties. She missed the invitations she would get leading her to some secret part of the ship that would be decked out to match whatever random theme had been provided for the evening. Aurora was always thrilled at the new decorum and oftentimes refused to let Nastya clean out the room instead admiring the new aesthetic for hours on end. She had even gotten one of her favorite gowns for an Alice in Wonderland themed one proudly dressing in a long light blue dress and apron with golden engraving all around the edge. The Toy Soldier had giddly dressed as the Mad Hatter and brought multiple new tea sets and interesting decorum for the occasion. Aurora was thrilled with the display and made sure it had known how much it adored the decoration and effort it had put into making her look the occasion only for it to respond that it wasn’t that big and that she needed to look as pretty as she possibly could be for the occasion. It had been a great night even if Jonny had commented on her dress confused as to why she was wearing a ballgown during the middle of the night. 

She sat in the old room with her dress silently waiting for the happy conversation that would never come before eventually getting up and leaving the now dulller room.

Brian had always missed it when it had been thrown out an airlock or gone missing, it was practically imbued in him. 

He was a moral individual and throwing someone out the airlock had never been something morally attractive but this time it had begun to seep and leak. He felt bad about it no matter what mode he had entered, he didn’t know what this justified and if anything it made the situation worse.

The Toy Soldier had been as much of a person as he was, it felt emotion, it debated problems, it had opinions and thoughts. It felt wrong to treat it rudely as much as it felt wrong to treat anyone else rudely and that is what made it even. They might not have been human but they were sentient no doubt and understood a lot of Brian's struggles.  
He missed the prophetic discussions and debates he could share while waiting for Aurora to run out of directions. He missed watching the stars and pointing out whatever shape they saw through the window to it, never losing its cheerful excitement. It missed the deep discussions they would tread through that nobody on the crew would dare to interrupt out of fear of being dragged in.

He remembered how happy it had been when he taught it how to read constellations, the joy and pride he felt when it pointed out something they recognized a constellation was unmatchable. He would put down whatever he was doing and follow them as they pointed out the new galaxies, stars and planets with glee as Brian chirped in with corrections. It felt human to do something so nice with it, it felt right. The cold vastness of space versus the undefeatable two. They would map every sky, every constellation, and put them on display for anyone to learn from. It was something sweet they shared and nothing could replace it.

Now the stars that had brought him such joy felt more bland and cold. 

Jonny had been the most upset with their disappearance. He began to realize just how much he cared about the wooden figure and before long grew to regret his decision with a seething hatred. He missed waking up to find tea and crumpets by the door after a rough night, he missed them comforting him when he cried and the fact that they would never make fun of him about it, he missed the way they smiled when giving him whatever small carving or jewelry it had made especially for him. He missed the small things they did onboard that no one else could do.

It was a mistake, just a small mistake, and Jonny had blown up at them and sentenced them to the cold vastness of space. They had just greeted them when he was drunk and in a bad mood and he snapped dragging them to the airlock with the help of an annoyed and drunken Tim. They even ordered it to go out on its own watching as it snapped into focus and left marching. The two then spent the rest of the night drinking away like this had been some sort of great accomplishment in their books uncaring as they moved on much to Aurora's dismay. 

The next morning was rough, hangovers had always been. It was even rougher when they hadn’t woken up to a small breakfast set up just inside their door with a ever so kind note. It was rough when they couldn’t hear the mandolin playing faintly from inside the ship as it sung along to a joyous tune. It hurt more to know that he had forced them out of the ship using something they knew it had regretted deeply. He was chilled to the bone as he recalled the night before and asked Aurora to turn back, she was unable to until they reached the next planet.

Six weeks later Jonny mourned the loss of the singer and finally after so long referred to them openly as a friend.

‘One of the best I’ve ever known’ he had proclaimed drunkenly at a random bar on a washed up planet. 

It took two more weeks before they found it, just not how they would’ve wanted to find it. The Mechanisms had been paid in a hefty sum to perform at a large venue for a party of higher class bidders in an auction. They had been struggling beforehand to find a good lineup without the Toy Soldier but eventually came up with something good enough to pass for them and were on their way. They kept morale up (even if barely) and had performed well enough to be invited to the after party that would be happening a little bit later. Jonny had been about to decline when he noticed a figure in the crowd, a slim tall figure dressed in red. That's what had brought them to the after party.

The group had spread out to find it but it obviously didn’t want to be found. Everytime they turned a corner it was in another room talking to the guests in its ever cheerful tone. The whole situation was a desperate and messy waltz as they tried to get close enough without scaring the Toy Soldier into fleeing. Jonny and Tim had felt quite guilty about the situation as they watched what was quite clearly their old friend wander about glancing nervously at them every minute or so without breaking their bright smile. 

After an hour or two of just back and forth attempts to shift around the room it seemed to make its decision quickly pardoning itself from the other guests and walking down over to what were probably the bathrooms. Jonny quickly followed after with Tim close behind careful to not arouse too much suspicion.

It would’ve been hard to find the dear wooden soldier if they weren't in the only stall that was closed.

“TS?” Jonny asked gently, knocking.

There was unsurprisingly no response.

“TS We know you’re in here,” he continued nervously. “It’s fine if you don’t want to see us but we just want to talk.”

There was another moment of silence before a small nervous voice poked through. “Then talk.”

He took a deep breath before beginning. “I’m sorry for pushing you out of the airlock and forcing you to stay out, it was never my intention to hurt you physically or emotionally and that is exactly what I did. I don’t expect you to forgive me but I want to ask if you want to come home, I swear if you do I won’t throw you out again.”

“I don’t know if that is home,” they responded.

Jonny and Tim both stood there in shock waiting for something to follow up. They knew that they hadn’t treated them alright but they hadn’t thought it was bad enough to make them think that it wasn’t worth it, they just thought it was playful banter that had gone too far not a whole build up of questions.

Tim was the first to speak up. “Can you elaborate?”

“I-I Don’t really know if Aurora's my home. You all were so, so nice to me but then would throw me away at the slightest annoyance no matter what I did. It-It wasn’t just you guys either, nobody wanted to talk to me. But here, here people want to see me, they want to meet me and be friends and be family and-and I don’t want to leave that behind.”

They stood in silence rethinking everything up to this point. They had just ignored them hadn't they? Never once had they asked how the Toy Soldier had been doing and now it was coming back to haunt them. 

“TS I’m so,so sorry for how we’ve treated you.” Tim had begun deciding to take the lead. “I can understand if you never want to come back to us and if you just want to stay here, I really wouldn’t blame you. I just want to say that if you come back we will change as you need and I can guarantee that. We’ll stop using you like something to take our anger out on and more like a person, like you deserve. You don’t need to forgive us, I don’t expect you to forgive us for as long as immortality will last, I just want to know if you’re coming home.”

It was silent for a bit before slowly it began to open the door. They fiddled nervously with the cuffs of their shirt looking down at the tiled floor. It was easy to say that it was uncomfortable with the situation. 

“Look I understand if you don’t want to be near us, I can call Ivy or Nastya to-”

Jonny was cut off as it buried its head into his chest quickly enveloping him a tight hug. Normally he would be much more uncomfortable with the situation, but this was different, this wasn’t something he wanted to break, so he hugged back carefully petting their hair in a light attempt at comfort. 

“I-I missed you guys,” it began. “I thought you didn’t want me around anymore.”

“TS we’ve never not wanted you around. Sometimes you might be a little much but we would never wish for you to just disappear completely like that,” Tim said.

It slowly unhugged Jonny, though noticeably reluctantly, to hug Tim with just as much force. 

The three stood there for a while holding a shaking Toy Soldier before eventually making the decision to leave, it was late and everyone was tired. Gathering up the few coats and hats they had adorned when walking in the small group made their way to the ship being greeted by the crew as they sat outside. 

“There you two are I thought-”

Ashes was cut off by the sight of their lost friend swaddled in a new fancy uniform and their friends' coats. 

They had never been the affectionate one of the group but seeing their friend after so long is what made Ashes break. They were the first over hugging the Toy Soldier closely close to tears. “I thought you weren’t going to come back dear.”

It let out the closest thing to a sob as it could hugging the arsonist closely like it was their last life line. In seconds they were surrounded by crying and comfort and warmth from the rest of the crew only causing it to feel more emotions then it had felt in a long, long time. It was being hugged, they cared about it. It sobbed harder at the thought gripping tight to whoever was holding it now. 

Slowly they moved inside as Tim quickly made and brought over a cup of tea and some biscuits handing them to it before joining back in with the group's cuddling. It took the plate thankfully and began to eat and drink as Ashes began to speak again.

“There's going to need to be some changes, and we’re going to need to work on it with you, okay?”

It nodded in understanding. 

“We can do it tomorrow if you want, you’ve had a long night and even you need some form of rest.”

“Yeah, that sounds nice,” it smiled.

“Alright, do you want us to stay here? Get some blankets and sleep here tonight?” 

They nodded again curling into the pillows the group had laid out as Ashes Tim and Jonny had gotten up allowing the rest to continue to cuddle it as they asked small questions.

“Do you want a book? I kept the adventuring one you liked safe.”

“I can fetch one of the octokittens, I'm sure Oscar would be thrilled to see you.”

“Do you need your mandolin? I can go get it for you.”

“I can fetch you your constellation guide, I know you like naming them.”

“Do you need more tea? I think we still have some cookies that you had been saving for the next tea party.”

It curled closer to the group answering the questions with kind no’s as Ashes soon returned with Jonny and Tim, the latter holding most of the pillows and comforters. The three joined the cuddle pile carefully trying not to disrupt anyone as the comforters were passed between everyone. 

For one in the past eight weeks TS felt at home with the Aurora and her crew. They felt safe and cared for and that was enough to make them begin to choke up again. They could wait until tomorrow to fix their relationships, for tonight they just wanted to rest with their friends.


End file.
